Baidu, the world’s second largest search company based in China said its revenue for the fourth quarter 2017 grew by 29% on a year on year basis.

Baidu’s total revenue for the period was RMB 23.6 billion which is approximately $3.62 billion using approved exchange rate.

The company said in the disclosure that its operating profit was RMB 4.8 billion ($734 million), increasing 118% year over year. Operating margin reached 20%, compared to 12% for the fourth quarter of 2016.

“In 2017, Baidu sharpened its strategic focus. We strengthened our management team and built strong momentum by adopting AI-first in our mobile businesses and investing in new AI businesses,” said Robin Li, Chairman and CEO of Baidu. “As we enter 2018, we will continue to strengthen Baidu’s search business, fuel feed’s growth and differentiate iQIYI with AI. We also look forward to further strengthening our position in autonomous driving and conversational AI, on top of the strong progress that we have made with Apollo and DuerOS in 2017.”

“We are deepening user engagement with Baidu core products and helping Baidu customers optimize their ad spend on our platform through the use of AI,” said Qi Lu, COO of Baidu. “On Baidu’s AI-enabled businesses, we are focused on expanding our partner and developer programs for our open platforms Apollo and DuerOS, which we successfully showcased at Baidu World and CES events.”

“We delivered solid financial performance in the fourth quarter with revenues up 29% year over year to RMB 23.6 billion, exceeding our guidance,” said Herman Yu, CFO of Baidu. “Entering 2018, we plan to continue our strategy to exit non-core businesses and increase investments in Baidu’s mobile and new AI businesses, which we believe play to Baidu’s strengths as a technology leader and will sow the seed for Baidu’s future growth in autonomous driving and conversational AI, particularly in the home environment.”